Of Guilt and Red Ledgers
by I Was NotA Robot
Summary: Natasha feels guilty. Of course she does - who wouldn't? After all, she's not exactly the best of human beings on Earth, and she knows it. She's swimming, she's drowning in red. ONESHOT, maybe some angst.


**_Red is the shadow she can't outrun, red is her heart and her hair. Red she will stay, and red will she die, for it is red she has become._**

* * *

Red.

Red was that recurring color that no matter how fast she ran, Natasha could never avoid it.

It was everywhere. Street signs, traffic lights, cars, clothes.

And that was all fine and good. People needed red, more than they knew.

* * *

" _Can you even speak Latin?" he asked her. She has half a mind to ignore the question, because she doesn't have time for rich, undeserving frat boys, and he acts like he knows how the world works (but he doesn't, not really, and despite his genius he knows nothing about her). But the plain truth is that he has no idea what the world is capable of. Whether she likes him or not (and she doesn't, because he's too clever for his own good and too careless, and she knows he could destroy the world someday) she feels a bit sorry for the bastard._

"The appearances of things are deceptive, Tony," _she wants to tell him, but she doubts that he'd understand._

" _Fallaces sunt rerum species." she tells him instead, and prepares to brush off his following question._

* * *

But it didn't stop. The color red, creeping into her vision at night, nightmares that tortured her mind in dreams. A screaming little girl, begging them to _stop, stop, please stop._ Red, oozing out onto the floor, covering the walls, the ceilings, herself, like a tidal wave of dread.

It wasn't just scaring her; it was haunting her. She breathed it, the red billowing up in fumes of scarlet smoke, reddish black crusted on the hilt of daggers, bright red lights flashing in her eyes in _WARNING, WARNING, WARNING._

As a child, it was the only color she could depend upon, that color that was always there, in everything. Her allies, her enemies. Her hair was red. Her mentors had called it exotic, beautiful, rare. Because she was the jewel of their collection, their most precious asset, and Natasha had fallen for it like the fool she was.

* * *

 _When she first met Steve Rogers, she believed that he was an extraordinarily overrated pushover. Turns out she was wrong. He's clever, he's strong, and he's a leader. Knowing him, he probably spent his Saturday afternoons holding open doors for elderly people, and his Sunday afternoons with his hands clasped and his faith in God. A prime example to set for America._

 _Nevertheless, he's still a bit clueless. Don't get her wrong, she likes the guy, but something about him irks her to no end, and tugs at the hollow heartstrings inside of her chest. She can't blame him, because he's never been strapped down to a steel table and rummaged through with impatient and unforgiving hands. He's never had his head ripped open and his heart torn out. He hasn't seen half the things she has (and if he did, then he'd know that there are a million things that can't be stopped, and only a hundred things that can be)._

" _The truth is a matter of circumstances, it's not all things to all people all the time. And neither am I."_

" _That's a tough way to live." he tells her gravely, blue eyes piercing hers. She nods, mostly to herself._

 _"It's a good way not to die, though."  
_

* * *

In the United States, Natasha could have changed her hair, perhaps blonde, or a pretty brunette, maybe even black. But she chose to keep it as it was, as a reminder of those scars on the back of her hands.

The worst thing they had done to her wasn't torturing her. That had made her strong; something she sorely needed.

The worst thing they had done was letting her run free, to fool her into believing she had her own mind. They hadn't just taught her to kill, or fight. No, that would be too kind.

* * *

" _You don't understand. Have you ever had someone take your brain and play? Take you out and stuff something else in? You know what it's like to be unmade?"_

" _You know I do."_

* * *

They had taught her to be brutal. Her ledger was the dirtiest thing she'd ever kept, besides her secrets, because her ledger was _made up_ of her secrets, dripping with guilt and history. Though it hadn't affected her at the time, when she woke up, the guilt would be the most painful thing she had ever experienced in her life.

Some thought that the Black Widow had an affinity for red.

Red lipstick, red nails, red heels, red belts, red ledgers.

But the truth was, she hated it, feared it, she _lived_ it.

Because beyond black and white and gray, there was red.

And now, it was the only color she could see.

* * *

" _You know, it's kind of hard to trust someone when you don't know who that someone really is."_

 _"Yeah. Who do you want me to be?" she asks, twitching her lips into an endearing smile. It's a choice that she rarely offers._

 _"How_ _about a friend?"_

 _This surprises, her, more than it should. She'd been too many things to so many people that nameless identities have become faded into a singular gray memory over her years. This, however, is a first._

 _"Well, there's a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers." she warns, looking down and laughing to herself._


End file.
